Archive for the ‘Elections’ Category

Bertica Cabrera-Morris is co-chair of Mitt Romney’s Florida campaign, and she’s out to convince Florida Latinos that Romney’s family values and his focus on business are in line with theirs. Host Maria Hinojosa brings us this profile.

In Arizona, the presidential race drives Latino voters and activists less than local issues, such as the state’s immigration law and the Maricopa Country sheriff’s race. Reported by Valeria Fernandez of the Feet in Two Worlds project.

Valeria Fernández, a native of Uruguay, has been reporting on Arizona’s immigrant community and the many angles and faces of the immigration debate for the ten years she has been in the U.S. As a senior reporter for La Voz Newspaper, Fernández produced in depth features about the plight of unaccompanied minors mistakenly charged as adults for crossing the U.S. border. The National Association of Hispanic Publications named Fernández “Latina Journalist of the Year” in 2004. She also won a national award for her series on the Maricopa County Sheriff’s immigration sweeps in Hispanic neighborhoods in 2009. Fernández is a versatile journalist that currently freelances for CNN Español, CNN International, Radio Bilingue, Inter Press Service, La Opinión, New America Media, and the Arizona Republic. Freelancing for the Phoenix New Times, she recently broke stories on the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office practice of shackling pregnant women during labor.

We present excerpts from a conversation with pollsters, reporters and policy experts on how the issues of immigration and the economy are driving the decisions of Latino voters. This event at The New School in New York City was part of the project Ballot Voices in collaboration with Feet in Two Worlds.

Fernand Amandi, managing partner at Bendixen & Amandi International, brings over a decade’s worth of experience in research and strategic management with an emphasis in corporate, political and public affairs consulting for clients including the United Nations, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, Univision, New America Media, the White House, the John & James L. Knight Foundation, the California Endowment, US Senator John Kerry and US Senator Robert Menendez.

Mr. Amandi has conceived, produced, and edited a number of successful television commercials for B&A International’s media practice. Mr. Amandi’s communications projects and analysis have been featured in The New York Times, CNN, National Public Radio, The Washington Post, USA Today, Newsweek, Time, The Economist, and the Miami Herald.

He is a graduate of Florida State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Social Science Education.

Jordan Fabian is the political editor for ABC News/Univision. Prior to joining Univision in 2011, he worked as a staff writer at The Hill newspaper in Washington, DC where he covered Congress and the 2012 presidential campaign. Jordan has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, ABC News digital broadcasts, and C-SPAN, and has contributed to a number of nationally-syndicated radio programs. He also freelanced for Hispanic Business magazine and Letras Libres. Jordan hails from Olney, Maryland and is a lifelong resident of the Washington area. He graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor of arts in history.

Chung-Wha Hong is Executive Director of the New York Immigration Coalition, an umbrella advocacy organization made up of approximately 200 groups throughout the state that work with immigrant and refugee communities. As the coordinating body for organizations that serve one of the largest and most diverse newcomer populations in the United States, the NYIC has become a leading advocate for immigrant communities on the local, state, and national levels. The NYIC’s membership includes grassroots community organizations, not-for-profit health and human services organizations, religious and academic institutions, labor unions, and legal, social, and economic justice organizations. With its pan-immigrant, multi-sector base, the NYIC provides both a forum for immigrant groups to share their concerns and a vehicle for collective action to address these concerns. The NYIC has registered over 300,000 new American voters to date, and is currently coordinating “Immigrants Vote!” – a multi-ethnic voter mobilization campaign in New York State.

Mark Hugo Lopez is the associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center where he studies the attitudes and opinions of Latinos, the political engagement of Latinos and Latino youth. Lopez also coordinates the Center’s national surveys. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University in 1996.

Victor Landa is the founder and editor of NewsTaco, a website that provides news, analysis and critique from a Latino perspective. He worked as a writer and editor for 30 years, mostly with Telemundo and Univisión. Landa also contributed to the San Antonio Express-News, and he is an adviser on media strategy, message crafting, storytelling and public speaking.

At 37, San Antonio mayor Julian Castro already has a decade of political office under his belt. And now he is getting the Democratic Party’s national spotlight as the keynote speaker at the convention in Charlotte. Meanwhile, his twin brother Joaquin is running for Congress. Hernán Rozemberg of the Fronteras desk brings us this profile.

Hernán Rozemberg is award-winning journalist with more than 16 years of experience. He has worked for various newspapers, including The Arizona Republic and the San Antonio Express-News. For more than a decade, he has specialized in coverage of immigration and border issues, including at his current position as Senior Correspondent and Bureau Chief for a Southwest public media project, Fronteras: The Changing America Desk. He holds at Master’s in International Relations from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas.

This year’s Republican National Convention was one day shorter and the party’s presidential candidate was officially nominated during the first 24 hours. So what’s the point of all the spectacle and symbols? And what kind of message is the GOP crafting for and about Latinos? Univision News political editor Jordan Fabian tells us his impressions.

Jordan Fabian is the political editor for Univision News’s English-language portal. Prior to joining Univision in 2011, he worked as a staff writer at The Hill newspaper in Washington, DC where he covered Congress and the 2012 presidential campaign. Jordan has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News and C-SPAN, and has contributed to a number of nationally-syndicated radio programs. He also freelanced for Hispanic Business magazine. Jordan hails from Olney, MD and is a lifelong resident of the Washington area. He graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor of arts in history.

Days after Ted Cruz won the Texas Republican Senate primary by a healthy margin, he landed a coveted speaking spot at the RNC in Tampa. San Antonio Express News metro columnist Ricardo Pimentel fills us in on the life and politics of this young Cuban-Canadian politician.

Ricardo Pimentel is a metro columnist for the San Antonio Express-News. He is a former president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and a former editorial writer and columnist for the Journal Sentinel.

As presidential elections approach, once again the state of the Latino vote gets discussed. While the Latino population keeps increasing, many are non-citizens, very young and in parts of the country that are not contested. So to what extent does it really matter to mobilize Latino voters in November? We speak to Ray Suarez, host of the PBS News Hour, and to Antonio Gonzalez, executive director of the William C. Velasquez Institute, to get a sense of the figures and the strategies.

Antonio Gonzalez is President of the William C. Velasquez Institute. WCVI, founded in 1985, is a paramount national Latino public policy and research organization.Gonzalez assumed the presidency of WCVI in 1994, after working in various capacities for WCVI founding President Willie Velasquez as well as his successor Andrew Hernandez during 1984-94. He assumed the presidency of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, a non-partisan voter mobilization entity, in 1994.

Ray Suarez joined The NewsHour in October 1999 as a Washington-based Senior Correspondent. Suarez came to The NewsHour from NPR where he had been host of the nationwide, call-in news program “Talk of the Nation” since 1993. Prior to that, he spent seven years covering local and national stories for the NBC-owned station, WMAQ-TV in Chicago.

New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez has said repeatedly that she would not accept an offer from Mitt Romney if he asked her to be on the ticket with him in November. Still, she could influence the GOP to moderate their immigration policies. Sarah Gustavus has this profile of a rising political star, part of new generation of Latino leaders.

Sarah Gustavus reports on topics like government, immigration and poverty for public radio and television, most recently as a reporter and host at KUNM in Albuquerque. Her work has aired nationally on All Things Considered, Weekend America, Making Contact, and Tell Me More. She grew up on a cattle ranch in Texas and spent several years developing her broadcasting skills in Seattle. She is currently studying for a master’s in media at City University in London, where her research focuses on news coverage of immigration.

Writer Daniel Hernandez was already disappointed in US politics when he moved to his parents’ home country of Mexico almost five years ago. Now that he is registered to vote in Mexico for the first time he has found old problems in the political system of his new home.

Daniel Hernandez is a freelance journalist based in Mexico City and a news assistant in the Los Angeles Times bureau in Mexico. He’s been a staff writer at the L.A. Times and LA Weekly. A native of San Diego, Calif., Daniel is author of the 2011 book “Down & Delirious in Mexico City.”